Neil deGrasse Tyson debunks moon landing stars conspiracy theory in 'idiots' takedown

Neil deGrasse Tyson has debunked one of the many theories which claims to prove that we didn't actually go to the moon.

The moon landings being faked is perhaps one of the largest conspiracy theories out there.

It has everything you would want in a classic conspiracy theory - technological marvels, cold war spy tension, a ticking clock, and a big government project.

But while it's very easy to see how the idea that the moon landings were staged might capture the public imagination, it is just a conspiracy theory.

Nonetheless, there are a lot of different bits of evidence that conspiracy theorists have put forward which they say support their theory that we never went to the moon.

And one of them is that when you look at pictures of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon, there are no stars in the sky behind them.

deGrasse Tyson spoke on his science podcast Star Talk, where he addressed this particular idea.

Buzz Aldrin on the moon (Heritage Space/Heritage Images via Getty Images)

"There are people who are sure that we did not land on the moon," he said in the clip, "and they looked at the photos of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in daylight, and they say, 'we know you're supposed to see stars in daylight and I don't see any stars in this photo, so therefore we didn't really go to the moon', as though NASA wouldn't know to fake that if that were the case."

Playing into the bit, he jokingly added: "You think NASA are idiots?

Of course, if someone was that smart then they would know to fake the stars in the sky behind, even matching up the patterns of the stars.

But there is a proper scientific explanation for why the stars did not appear in the back drop here.

It's all to do with the intensity of the light in a photograph.

"What the person doesn't know is how photography works," deGrasse Tyson explained, "the terrain is so bright from the sun the aperture of the camera closes down and cannot register the light of dim things such as the stars in the sky."

Neil Armstrong's boot print on the moon (Heritage Space/Heritage Images via Getty Images)

Basically, if you point a camera at a bright desk lamp with some LED string lights behind it, the light of the lamp will overwhelm the string lights, and if you were to adjust the camera to be sensitive enough to pick up the string lights then the stronger light from the lamp would wash out the photo completely.

Of course, there are plenty of other pieces of evidence that we went to the moon, such as the testimonies of the men who actually went to the moon, the photos of the Earth from space, including the astonishing Earth Rise.

Then there's the small matter of the thousands of NASA employees from head engineers to cleaning and catering, all of whom would need to be sworn to silence in perpetuity.

Perhaps most convincing of all however, if all of that still didn't convince you, is the reaction of the people who had most to lose from the US making it to the moon - the USSR.

The USSR never publicly denounced the moon landings as fake, despite it being a huge public humiliation after they were beaten there by the US.